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2011-09-15T10:02:00.004-04:00

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Watch the live announcement of the fourth Digital Media & Learning Competition on Sept. 15th!

2011-08-31T15:00:00.003-04:00

Digital Media and Learning Competition 4: Badges for Lifelong Learning

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, in collaboration with Mozilla and HASTAC, invite you to an event on September 15th at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC and online at hastac.org/DML-competition-launch to explore the potential of Badges for Lifelong Learning. Badges are a new assessment tool that will help identify skills mastered in formal and informal settings, virtually and in physical spaces, and in schools, workplaces and communities.

Today learning happens anytime, anyplace, at any age. How can 21st century learners demonstrate their knowledge and skills? Digital badges can inspire learning, unlock jobs, educational and civic opportunities and open new pipelines for talent. The event will feature the announcement of the 4th Digital Media and Learning competition which will provide up to $2 million in grants for innovations in the use of Badges for Learning.

Watch the live video stream from the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington at hastac.org/DML-competition-launch from 9:00am to 10:30am EDT on September 15th.

Featured speakers include:

The Honorable Arne Duncan, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education
Charles F. Bolden, Jr., Administrator, NASA
Emily Stover DeRocco, President, The Manufacturing Institute and the National Center for the American Workforce
Mark Surman, Executive Director, Mozilla Foundation

Launched: HyperCities Los Angeles Research Collection

2011-08-30T16:46:00.004-04:00

Exciting news for HyperCities, a HASTAC/Macarthur Foundation 2008 Digital Media & Learning Competition winner: With the generous support of the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, the HyperCities Los Angeles Research Collection has launched.

The “Los Angeles Research Collection” empowers citizens and researchers to use the tools of interactive “time mapping.” With HyperCities, you can explore social, cultural, and political history in Los Angeles over time. The site can be accessed from a web-browser in any school, community center, government office, home, and academic setting, allowing citizens to delve into and create their own collections of mappable knowledge and cultural heritage. Community-generated content exists side-by-side with scholar-produced research data, thereby creating new interactions between traditionally separated domains of knowledge.

A centerpiece of the Los Angeles Research Collection is the “Pdub” collection of materials from Historic Filipinotown. Built by the Pilipino Worker’s Center (PWC), a community service organization serving LA’s Historic Filipinotown (“Hi Fi”), and Public Matters, a public history design and educational media partnership, “Pdub Productions” is an innovative project using new media as a way to connect with, explore and promote Hi Fi’s rich history and culture. The collection brings to life historical maps of the region using the voices, narratives, and videos of generations of people who live in the neighborhood. In addition to featuring a trove of archival materials relating to the history of the region, it also provides viewers with a cultural map of the present-day neighborhood.

Social Scientists have contributed several important datasets as seed-beds for the planned growth of the Los Angeles Research Collections. One is the Los Angeles County Union Census Tract Data Series, 1940-2000 (Los Angeles: University of Southern California, 2000-2006), created under the leadership of Philip Ethington and Dowell Myers, and consisting of 438 variables, for the years 1940-2000. With this data, users can track the demographic history of any census track in Los Angeles county over the past sixty years, or examine shifts in ethnic composition, median income, education level, age, occupation, and more. The Voting and Demographic Data for the 2001 and 2005 Mayoral Elections in the City of Los Angeles, contributed by Mark Drayse and Raphael Sonenshein of CSU Fullerton, was funded by the Russell Sage Foundation; the Annual Immigration Data Aggregated to ZIP Code level data set was assembled by Ali Modarres of CSU Los Angeles. HyperCities supplies the connective links between these separate collections and allows researchers, scholars, and community groups to access and utilize these data through a common online platform.

The “HiFi” collection is a “Featured Collection” — but users can also create their own collections using the publicly available data or “mix-and-match” historical maps and other collections from the HyperCities site. To do so, simply close the HiFi collection (click the box in the upper-right corner) and begin exploring the historical maps and collections. You can always return to HiFi under “featured collections” (click the book icon to see the full narrative view of the collection). Over the next year, we will be dramatically expanding the LA collections with new featured collections on neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights and more demographic data-sets.

Collaborators on the HyperCities Los Angeles Research Collection include co-PIs Jan Reiff, Diane Favro, Todd Presner, and Chris Johanson, as well as Reanne Estrada, Philip Ethington, Dave Shepard, Mike Blockstein, Aquilina Soriano, Yoh Kawano, and Ryan Chen.

Sasha Costanza-Chock Moves to MIT's Comparative Media Studies

2011-08-19T11:44:00.000-04:00

Good news for MIT's Comparative Media Studies program: Sasha Costanza-Chock has joined the faculty as Assistant Professor of Civic Media. Sasha was instrumental in VozMob's (Mobile Voices/ Voces Moviles) project leadership (2009 Digital Media & Learning Competition winner). Together with 12 other Voz Mob members, Sasha made important contributions to participatory research methods that reflect the same collaborative design process and principles used in developing VozMob.

Ethan Zuckerman talked to Sasha about his research on VozMob in an interview for MIT's Center for Civic Media:

"I believe in thinking beyond web2.0, looking beyond the glossy surface of the latest high-end tools. Many civic media projects are geared around that small slice of the population lucky enough to have always-on broadband connectivity. I'm interested in how civic media reaches beyond that 5-10% of the global public." That design strategy, as well as a strong practice of rooting both research and design in community participation, led to Costanza-Chock's work with the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA) on VozMob (Mobile Voices / Voces Movíles), which helps day laborers in LA share stories and reports with their community using mobile phones to write stories, record audio and take photos.

It was working with the immigrant rights movement that led Costanza-Chock to develop theory around what he calls transmedia mobilization: "My research suggests that social movements are most effective when the media opportunity structure shifts and opens; when they engage in cross-platform production and distribution; when they develop a praxis of digital media literacy; and when movement organizations shift from top-down structures of communicative practice to horizontal, participatory structures that include their social base."

Greg Niemeyer's Social App Lab launches City Sandbox: Q&A Site for Civic Action

2011-08-12T13:43:00.003-04:00

After developing BlackCloud.org, a 2008 Digital Media & Learning Competition winner, Greg Niemeyer went on to co-found Social App Lab, a new initiative at UC Berkeley's Center for Informational Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). New this summer from Social App Lab, a team of thinkers, doers, and makers launched CitySandbox, a Q&A site for civic action.

Ever wonder what's going on with that empty lot? Or when the new city park is supposed to open? Maybe you've wondered where the closest community garden is located. CitySandbox is designed to leverage the collective power of the Internet to impact local, physical surroundings, and to answer those questions that don't tend to show up in Google search results. According to the website:

At CitySandbox, you ask questions about specific places in your city and discuss them with other residents. You identify priorities, form collective opinions, and take action on goals. You can find out who else in interested in your questions and how the community as a group can address them. Through a system of voting and discussion, all community members can use CitySandbox to weigh in, make their voices heard, and build their reputations as active citizens. As groups form around issues, CitySandbox provides an easy way to communicate with other people interested in the same questions and create events which others can join to take action.

In an interview with Alexndra Chang, Greg describes the unique purpose of CitySandbox:

"CitySandbox attempts to fill the gap by making physical location the central way to navigate questions, setting it apart from other question services. And the embedded Google maps let users see what people are saying about, for example, the park down the street."

CitySandbox is currently in beta, with testing taking place in Berkely -- but it's easy to see how a site like this would be useful to any community that has potholes and citizens who question, and care.

Bruce Caron on Skolr: Extending the lifespan of the academic poster

2011-08-11T14:28:00.000-04:00

Bruce Caron, one of our 2009 Digital Media & Learning Competition winners (DigitalOcean: Sampling the Sea), has an interesting new project of interest to academics, particularly scientists.

In partnership with the Sloan Foundation, the Carsey-Wolf Center, and the New Media Studio, DigitalOcean is building a searchable open-source software program that archives science posters. In an interview with James Badham, Bruce explains the appeal of sharing and archiving posters:

“What if there were a hundred meetings of various disciplines that all contributed posters to a searchable collection?” Caron posits. “You could start finding the crosscutting research connections between disciplines, even though people aren’t in the same room, at the same meeting, or even in the same area of research. You can imagine an ocean-science researcher who has a project on a marine protected area in Hawaii being able to connect with a poster about the history of colonization on that island. It’s a way to provide a larger purview of the activity of doing science. Or imagine you are a person who has a DigitalOcean profile, where you’ve created a map of your research region of interest, and every time a poster is created somewhere in the world that has content relevant to that, you receive an announcement on your DigitalOcean's home page.”

DigitalOcean uses collaborative digital media to network and enable interdisplinary communities to work together, both to increase public involvement and learning in classrooms around the globe. For more information on the project, see DigitalOcean's project page on HASTAC.org, or visit them at http://digocean.net.

Image credit: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/neistridlar/4402610606/

David Gibson on 21st Century Assessment

2011-07-27T15:28:00.002-04:00

Listen up, class! David Gibson, a 2009 Digital Media & Learning Competition winner (Global Challenge Award), will be featured as one of three speakers talking about 21st century assessment of digital learning during Gaming and Social Networks as Next Generation Learning Experiences, a one-hour webinar in Adobe Connect on July 28, 2011 at 1pm EST. (The webinar will be archived.)

I've heard David talk about digital media assessment before, and know enough about his vision with simSchool to know that this will be a very interesting talk, well worth attending live or listening to later.

Adobe Connect, I'm pulling for you, especially the audio).

David recently won one of Next Generation Learning Challenges Wave I awards for simSchool, a "flight simulator" that helps educators adapt instruction to individual learner needs. We have had the good fortune to have David bring his vast expertise in digital media assessment to several events, including HASTAC's Peer-to-Peer Pedagogy workshop held at Duke University in 2010, as well as the 2011 Digital Media Conference -- I was glad to see that Jennifer Jesu-Anter captured the highly innovative nature of David's work (and mind) in her Stealth Assessment blog post from the conference.

To follow the simSchool project's progress, visit their blog at http://www.simschool.net/.

For information on joining the Gaming and Social Networks as Next Generation Learning Experiences, see instructions below:
Topic: Gaming and Social Networks as Next Generation Learning Experiences
Speakers: David Gibson, SimSchool; Chris Sprague, OpenStudy; and David Gibson, Carnegie Learning
Date: Thursday, July 28, 2011
Time: 1:00 p.m. ET (12:00 p.m. CT, 11:00 a.m. MT, 10:00 a.m. PT)

With the rise of multi-player games and social networks in our popular culture, faculty and instructional designers are increasingly turning to these highly interactive and immersive environments to promote learning in new ways. As the debate continues around their potential for deeper learning and engagement, tune in on July 28 to hear how three recent grantees from are leveraging these environments to promote content mastery, collaboration, and critical thinking. In this one-hour webinar, representatives from Carnegie Learning, and simSchool – three pioneers in the field – will share more about their plans for scale and assessment and invite your questions and feedback for their projects as they move forward.

The web seminar is free and open to all, but virtual seats are limited. Attendance is first come, first served. The session will be recorded and archived for later viewing.

DML Winners: Where Are They Now?

2011-01-07T09:43:00.003-05:00

It is not hyperbolic to say that 2010 was a phenomenal year for the DML Competition. We partnered with the White House's National Lab Network initiative, sent 13-year-old Game Changer winner Jack Hanson to meet President Obama at the White House Science Fair, and were honored to have the nation's first Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, congratulate Game Changer winners at the Games for Change Festival in New York, and the Learning Lab winners at a separate event in Washington, DC.

Digital media and learning events involving the highest offices in the nation? There is most certainly a sea change in how we define 21st century learning. And no small amount of effort went into making that transformation happen. The contributions of the DML Competition winners alone have been impressive, whether their impact is measured by research, awards, policy, partnerships, conferences, innovation, and most importantly, student participation.

In the upcoming weeks and months, we will feature DML Competition projects from the past 3 years and share their work here and on HASTAC.org (click here for daily updates on our Countdown to the 2010 DML Competition Showcase series). For now, celebrate the beginning of a new year for Digital Media and Learning with a few highlights from our 2008-2010 DML Competition winners:

History Game Canada distributed 100,000 free copies of Chapter One of their game to Canadian students, ages 12 to 18 years old, which has been referred to as one of the worlds largest experiments in participatory learning of national history.

DevInfo Gameworks and M-Ubuntu (two projects from 2009) collaborated on an international project in South Africa with 6th grade students, using mobile phones, laptops, and other technology to create student-designed digital games.

Engagement Game Labs (developers of Participatory Chinatown) won a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation's Technology for Engagement Initiative to further their work with Community PlanIt.

Mobiles Voices won a NetSquared N2Y4 Mobile Challenge and a UN-sponsored World Summit Award, and has been featured by NPR, PBS, and the Los Angeles Times.

Women Aloud (WAVE) founder Sapna Shahani has been selected for World Pulse's Voices of the Future Web 2.0 training program, and was also nominated for a Manthan award in e-learning.

Playpowers Derek Lomas was a PopTech Social Innovation Fellow in 2009, and Playpowers work was featured in the UKs Guardian, Wired Magazine, and on the World Banks blog.

In 2009 alone, MILLEE received press in more than 20 publications, and received funding to expand their work to China by Carnegie Mellon University and Nokia.

More than 600 students have gathered 10,000 bird sightings using WildLabs app for the iPhone, and they were encouraged to apply for a US Department of Education Small Business Innovation Research Grant. Going to SXSW this year? Look for WildLab -- they have been selected to present on a panel!

CellCraft experienced early success, and the game has reportedly been played more than 2 millions times (as of 12/2010). It was played more than one million times within 10 days of its release, and was ranked in the top 100 best games of all time out of more than 30,000 games on the free gaming site Kongregate.com. Researchers working on the project found that those who played an early version of CellCraft for 30 minutes showed statistically significant improvement on a cellular biology quiz.

Jonah Models Origami project was well received and subsequently tested by The Wolfsonian (who received MacArthur Foundation and IMLS funding for the Webwise Conference).

CivicsLab won a Pubic Allies Changemaker Award, and has received press from Forbes, NPR, and a variety of Pittsburgh newspapers.

Black Cloud, now Aclima Participatory Learning Lab, acquired an exclusive license with Aclima, Inc. to globally distribute their pufftrons, and was a semi-finalist in the Buckminster Fuller Challenge.

Sustainable South Bronx and Vision Education Media New York (Ohmwork, 2008) went on to develop GreenFab, a collaboration that was featured in the Huffington Post.

HASTAC nominated Antero Garcia of Black Cloud (2008) for a Teaching Ambassador Fellowship, and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the appointment of Antero as one of 15 Classroom Fellows selected from 500 applicants. Congratulations Antero!

Critical Commons was featured on BoingBoing, and won a USC Teaching with Technology Award to develop Mobile Commons, which will allow users to access Critical Commons from mobile platforms.

Hypercities won a Google Digital Humanities Research in 2010, and Public Matters, a collaborator on the project, was recently awarded a 5-year grant from the National Institute of Health with UCLA and Keck Medical School at USC.

Game Changer Josh Hughes of Team Kaizen was encouraged to apply for a US Department of Education Small Business Innovation Research grant.

Fab@School won a Motorola Foundation Innovation Generation Award and was featured on NPR and NBC, while also receiving great feedback about their digital fabrication and learning initiatives from Karen Cator, Director of Office for Education and Technology with the US Department of Education.

Mobile Action Lab will be developing youth-created apps based on a two-part investigative report with NPRs All Things Considered, a story that was subsequently picked up by the Huffington Post, Gawker, Jezebel, and BoingBoing. UPDATE: Mobile Action Lab gives us a glimpse into Brains and Beakers, a recent Lab event, as they prepare to launch their new website and get ready to go on Twitter.

Countdown to the 2010 DML Competition Showcase features Where Are They Now? updates on the 2008, 2009, and 2010 winners. The 2010 DML Competition winners will showcase their projects at the Designing Learning Futures DML Conference on March 4, 2011 in Long Beach, California.

Winners of Game Changers Kids Competition Announced

2010-10-18T10:12:00.004-04:00

October 18, 2010 (Washington, DC) - Seventeen winners of the Game Changers Kids Competition were announced in Washington, DC today at the White House Science Fair, with President Barack Obama congratulating 13-year-old Jack Hanson of New Mexico, for scoring the highest marks in this competition for young game designers. Hanson created the Live or Die adventure for the popular science learning game Spore^TM. He was accompanied to the White House by his mother Lori Hanson and his sister and fellow teammate, 15-year-old Haley Hanson, who will also receive an award for her LittleBigPlanet^TM entry.

Funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and administered by the virtual network of learning institutions HASTAC (www.hastac.org), the Game Changers Kids Competition was part of the third annual $2 million Digital Media and Learning Competition, dedicated to Reimagining Learning. This year, MacArthur teamed with Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), the Entertainment Software Association, and the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation to support new and creative user-generated levels and adventures to engage young people in learning in the two games. The intention of the Competition is to promote participatory learning, which operates under the notion that individuals, specifically young ones, learn best through sharing and involvement.

Kids learn by doing, and the Game Changers Kids Competition encourages them to learn science and technology by making it themselves in an environment that is fun and challenging, noted Connie Yowell, Director of Education at the MacArthur Foundation. In the digital age, the learning environment is turned on its head its no longer just the dynamic of the student, the teacher and the curriculum. Today, kids learn and interact with others even from around the world every time they go online, or play a video game, or engage through a social networking site. This Competition is helping us to identify and nurture the creation of learning environments that are relevant for kids today and will prepare them for a 21st century workforce.

Kids were challenged to develop new levels and adventures for the popular games Spore^TM (EA) and LittleBigPlanetTM (Sony). Winners who designed adventures for Spore^TM will be hosted, along with a parent or guardian, on a trip to Electronic Arts (EA), the game design company that developed Spore^TM. Kids who won for creating new levels for LittleBigPlanet^TM will receive a Sony PSP-3000 system.

Jack Hanson's Spore^TM adventure, titled Live or Die, was chosen both for its challenging, entertaining game play and the scientific principles required to create and play it. Judges praised the way all the actions in the survivor adventure have consequences, and the way Hanson uses Artificial Intelligence and randomizing principles to make the game replayable, with new situations arising from each choice the gamer makes and a new game scenario developing each time one plays. I wanted my level to be interesting and new each time someone plays it, explained Jack. I made it so that there are different problems, but there are lots of different ways to solve those problems."

"Jack and Haley each brought a different set of skills and strengths to the creation of the adventure and the challenges its creation presented. The Competition offered a great opportunity not just for them to learn together, but also for them to learn from each other," commented Lori Hanson. She continued, "Spore is a great cross-curricular learning platform. It provides kids with a new way of engaging with content and conveying larger educational concepts, whether it is math, science, geography or literature, in a way that is compelling to them." Jack agrees: "Working with video games like Spore is a fun and interactive way of learning. It motivates me to learn more." Haley adds, "Spore offers a place to reinforce what you are learning. Making educational programs that other people use to learn gives you a real sense of accomplishment. It makes you feel like an expert."

The Kids Competition promotes learning by doing, a total immersion in the way to think through and with technology, said Duke University Professor Cathy N. Davidson, who along with David Theo Goldberg, Director of the University of California Humanities Research Institute, is co-founder of HASTAC. Games help kids to reimagine and expand their understanding of learning across all domains of knowledge," Goldberg notes. Davidson and Goldberg manage the annual Digital Media and Learning Competitions as a team.

The Digital Media and Learning Competition is part of the MacArthur Foundations Digital Media and Learning Initiative, designed to help determine how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. Now in its third year, the Competition is an annual effort to find and to inspire the most novel uses of new media in support of learning. This years Competition was launched in collaboration with President Obama's Educate to Innovate initiative, challenging designers, inventors, entrepreneurs, and researchers to create learning labs for the 21st century, digital environments that promote building and tinkering in new and innovative ways. Aneesh Chopra, the Chief Technology Officer of the United States, announced the nineteen winners of the adult competition in May 2010. Full information about the Competition can be found at www.dmlcompetition.net.

The seventeen winners of the Game Changers Kids Competition are:

LittleBigPlanet Winners

William Cuddy, Canada
River Rush!
Team: Rush! (Richasackboy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eu8LU5mk2E

Haley Hanson, USA
Reflections V7.5
Team: VolcanicStardust (VolcanicThor, Stardust_Gal)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhW_KtnlY9k

Cole Hildebrandt, USA
The Elements . . . and Bombs
Team: 42 Donuts (Cole H. and Non W.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDmZRouKGKM

Paras Mehta, USA
Almost Impossible
Team: ninjakids (Paras Mehta, Kevin Mehta)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq3KhbT9PLU

Kirk Miller, USA
Super Spy
Team: Team Miller (Kirk, Dominic)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd0kOzTsWos

Spore Winners

Samuel Barch, USA
El Fin
Team: Team Doomsday (Gengar114)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoVkm6F70Ps

Davey Barron, USA
A World Devoid
Team: doozercrew (doozerdude)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGXsDcoIVro

Brock Carter, Canada
Saving Private Roto (Spore)
Team: Team Nurv (Brock)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyAgJFizsBY

Caleb Craig, USA
Marcellus
Team: Team Areon (CoolCaleb7800, elizabeth705)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFS_Av83bGs

Philip Greene, United Kingdom
The Tomb of Khafra
Team: Evolution (Conquest1600)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrpIlWGVefs

Robert Groome, USA
Island of Illusions
Team: Malacinator (Malackasurus, Geckonator97)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUfHbaWEDWY

Jack Hanson, USA
LIVE or DIE
Team: Thor_In_The_Sky (pelicanthor, bunny_in_the_sky)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypABG7lYoYw

Khloe Ilsley, USA
The Ghost Ship
Team: Dreamweaver (Khloe14)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbtN1iDAuyA

Aidan Robak, USA
Aronzo and the Treasure
Team: TheGreatOcean (Arsonfire)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfgisBQjutA

Demetri Sofides, USA
The Lantern Bearer
Team: Team Fezonn (Fezonn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grmerFvbrWs

Aaron Thomson, USA
Star Jump
Team: Star Master (Aaron Thomson)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJCpeqcSGsc

Henry Williams, USA
The End
Team: Droid (Inferno7, Jaconan)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRpl0ez05SI

# # #

About HASTAC
A consortium of humanists, artists, scientists, social scientists and engineers from universities and other civic institutions across the U.S. and internationally, the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) is committed to new forms of collaboration for thinking, teaching, and research across communities and disciplines fostered by creative uses of technology. More information is at www.hastac.org.

About the MacArthur Foundation
The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and society. More information is at www.macfound.org.

Media Contacts:

Mandy Dailey, HASTAC, mandy.dailey@duke.edu, tel. (919) 681-8897
Jen Humke, MacArthur Foundation, jhumke@macfound.org, tel. (312) 726-8000

HASTAC
www.hastac.org
www.twitter.org/hastac

Kids Competition final deadline announced!

2010-06-30T15:05:00.009-04:00

The Game Changers Kids Competition will be open for applicants throughout the summer vacation. The final deadline for all applications--both new and/or revised re-submissions**--is 5:00pm EDT on August 31st.

As a reminder, this contest is for creative levels in LittleBigPlanet and adventures in Spore made by anyone, anywhere in the world who is under 18 years old. If you are a young gamer we hope you'll apply. If you know one, perhaps you can let them know about the competition.

**If you submitted your application earlier in the Competition cycle and wish to revise and re-submit, make sure to do so before 5:00 pm EDT on August 31st by emailing the link to your revised level/adventure to dml@hri.uci.edu.

Game Changers Kids Competition 2010

Join the 2010 Game Changers Kids Competition for Spore and Little Big Planet players. This is your chance to prove yourself as an innovative video game creator! Winners must be under 18, and will be selected based on “Creativity” and “Playability.”

LittleBigPlanet

Create an inspired LittleBigPlanet™ level with a team of 2 or 3 of your friends, or on your own for a chance to win a PSP® PlayStation Portable device and game!

Learn more at: http://www.dmlcompetition.net/kidscomp/lbp

SPORE Galactic Adventures

Create an inspired adventure with a team of 2 or 3 of your friends, or on your own for a chance to win a visit to Electronic Arts, home to Spore!

Learn more at: http://www.dmlcompetition.net/kidscomp/spore

People's Choice Winners Announced

2010-06-17T08:43:00.001-04:00

Here's the official announcement, just released yesterday!

June 16, 2010 (Los Angeles, CA)-- Four People's Choice winners of the MacArthur Foundation/HASTAC Digital Media and Learning Competition were announced today at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, CA. The announcement was made by Aneesh Chopra, the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States, to an audience of innovators in video game development, technology, and learning. The four People's Choice award winners were selected by the public at large in over twelve hundred votes submitted on the www.dmlcompetition.net in the categories of 21st Century Learning Lab Designers and Game Changers.

People's Choice winners are:

21st Century Learning Lab Designers

Hole in the Wall: Activity Based E-Learning for Improving Elementary Education in India
Hole-in-the-Wall Education Limited, New Delhi, India
Bridging the digital divide by reaching previously underserved youth in the developing worldurban slums and remote-rural populations, ethnic minorities, juvenile home detainees, and children with special needs Hole-in-the-Wall has installed over 700 internet-enabled public Playground Learning Stations across India, Bhutan, Cambodia and countries in the African continent. Game-activities promote experiential learning that is mapped to prescribed primary grade curricula across various subjects, Hole-in-the-Walls Activity Based E-Learning Solution imparts a playful learning environment by encouraging learning through self and group exploration beyond the classroom.

Nox No More: Connecting Travel Logs with Simulation, Gaming, and Environmental Education
Rosanna Garcia, Northeastern University, Boston, MA
Nox No More is an online game that personalizes environmental education by linking learning to a players personal life to illustrate the positive impact of simple, everyday choices. Players upload real, GPS-gathered personal travel data into a competitive game. During the course of game play, players attempt to save the planet from carbon emissions and are provided with an analysis of potential fuel savings and ways they can reduce pollution by making alternative transportation choices, such as alternative fuel vehicles, public transportation, consolidation of trips, bicycling and walking. Aimed at college students, a beta version of the game will ultimately be available to middle and/or high schools as part of an environmental science curriculum.

Game Changers

Sackboys and The Mysterious Proof
Kan Yang Li, New York City, NY
In Sackboys and The Mysterious Proof, LittleBigPlanet players must escape from the
Proof family's century-old mansion by solving a series of puzzles using geometric reasoning. With puzzle mechanics driven by geometric theorems, students will convert geometric concepts from the classroom into active knowledge through collaborative play inspired by precision learning.

Mission:Evolution
Jennifer Biedler, Blacksburg High School, Blacksburg, VA
In Mission: Evolution, high school students thoroughly analyze the evolutionary science driving the Spore game engine and investigate the scientific accuracy of the game. Working together to identify principles of evolutionary change that are absent from the off-the-shelf version of Spore, students collaborate to introduce these principles into their own missions in Spore Galactic Adventures.

Peoples Choice winners were chosen from the overall winners of the Digital Media and Learning Competition. Now in its third year, the Competitionfunded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and administered by the virtual network of learning institutions HASTACis an annual effort to find and to inspire the most novel uses of new media in support of learning.

This year the Competition was launched in collaboration with President Obamas Educate to Innovate campaign, challenging designers, inventors, entrepreneurs, and researchers to create learning labs for the 21st century, digital environments that promote building and tinkering in new and innovative ways. Detailed information about the winning projects and the Competition is available at www.dmlcompetition.net.

E3 is the annual trade expo sponsored by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) (http://www.theESA.com/), the U.S. association dedicated to serving the business and public affairs needs of companies that publish computer and video games for video game consoles, personal computers, and the Internet. This years convention will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from June 15-17, 2010
(http://www.e3expo.com/)

About the MacArthur Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and society. More information is available at www.macfound.org.

About HASTAC
A consortium of humanists, artists, scientists, social scientists and engineers from universities and other civic institutions across the U.S. and internationally, the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) is committed to new forms of collaboration for thinking, teaching, and research across communities and disciplines fostered by creative uses of technology. The infrastructure for HASTAC has been largely provided by the John Hope
Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies and the Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University and the University of California Humanities Research Institute. More information is at www.hastac.org.

Press contacts:
HASTAC: Mandy Dailey, (919) 681-8897, mandy.dailey@duke.edu

Help pick the winners of the People's Choice Awards

2010-05-27T15:38:00.001-04:00

Public voting on Digital Media and Learning Competition winning projects is now open!

Cast up to 4 votes for your favorite winning projects and help to decide which winning projects will receive additional awards and the title of "People's Choice."

Voting will close on June 4th, so don't wait. Visit http://www.dmlcompetition.net/pligg/ to cast your votes today!

Game Changers announced

2010-05-27T15:04:00.004-04:00

Last week at the Games for Change Festival in New York City, the winners of the Digital Media and Learning Game Changers Competition were announced by Aneesh Chopra - the first-ever CTO of the United States!

You can learn much more about them at http://www.dmlcompetition.net/year_3/winners.php?comp=gc

Here are their video pitches:

Learning Lab Designers announced

2010-05-13T10:03:00.004-04:00

Congratulations to the ten 2010 DML Competition winners announced this week! (Game Changers will be announced in two weeks.)

Their videos are below:

Game Changers Kids Competition is now open

2010-05-04T16:08:00.007-04:00

Announcing the Digital Media and Learning Game Changers Kids Competition! Please share the web site http://www.dmlcompetition.net/kidscomp and the announcement below with any kids or colleagues who work with young people that may be interested in applying.

Game Changers Kids Competition 2010

LittleBigPlanet

SPORE Galactic Adventures

Finalist videos now posted for comment!

2010-04-20T17:15:00.002-04:00

Public comment now open on finalist videos for this year's HASTAC/ MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition at http://www.dmlcompetition.net/pligg

Finalists for this year's Digital Media and Learning Competition have now all posted their final three-minute video applications online. Through verbal pitches, story narratives, dramatic renderings, and machinima-style demos, the applicants have used videos to show how they are reimagining learning. We invite you to visit http://www.dmlcompetition.net/pligg to see for yourself and to share your opinions and feedback with the applicants.

In May, you will have the opportunity to help determine which finalist will be named the People's Choice award winner. Stay tuned to http://www.dmlcompetition.net for details!

Share your thoughts on finalists' applications!

2010-04-02T14:45:00.002-04:00

We are pleased to announce the finalists for the 3rd HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition. Our first round judges had the seemingly impossible task of narrowing down an amazing field of ideas and we are proud to present these 67 finalists who are re-imagining learning in new and innovative ways. You can view the full list of finalists at http://www.dmlcompetition.net/finalists.php.

We invite you to visit http://www.dmlcompetition.net/pligg/ to read through the applications that have advanced to the final round and to share any feedback and your ideas as to what the finalists should consider in advance of the second round. On April 19th, these finalists will post a three minute video that further describes their idea (whether through a verbal pitch, a story narrative, a dramatic rendering, or a machinima-style demo), so your comments during this period are welcomed and appreciated. You will also have the opportunity to view and comment on the round two video applications after April 19th.

Many thanks to all the applicants to this year's Competition and to all of you that have shared your thoughts and invaluable feedback as part of the public commenting process. We hope you will continue to stay tuned and to participate!

2010 Finalists Announced!

2010-04-01T15:34:00.001-04:00

The lists of finalists in both the Game Changers and 21st Century Learning Labs competitions has been announced. It's available on our web site, but I'll also paste the list below.

Soon their applications will be available online for additional commenting, and the applicants will be asked to add more detail including multimedia content to further explain their ideas.

Thanks again to all of the amazing educators, activists, and community organizers that applied!

Learning Lab Finalists

Jodi Asbell-Clarke, Technical Education Research Centers (TERC), Canada
Climate Changers: An MMO virtual lab game to save a planet
Mark Belinsky, Digital Democracy, United States
Roebling - Bridging international cultural and social divides among refugee youth and their classmates
Michael Bitz, Center for Educational Pathways, United States
Youth Music Exchange
Lizann Bolinger, United States
Science Goes Social via Collaborative Internet Site
Anne Bray, LA Freewaves, United States
MetroVoice: About/In/By Los Angeles
Glen Bull, University of Virginia, United States
Fab@School - A Digital Fabrication Laboratory for the Classroom
Matthew Steven Carlos, United States
MaasaiLab
Michelle Chen, WNET.ORG, United States
‘They Might Be Giants’ INVENTION
Jori Clarke, Circle 1 Network, United States
Collections of Collaboration: Protecting Oceans Using the Virtual World to Understand the Real World
Andrew Crow, Worcestershire County Council (Children's Services Directorate), United Kingdom
Mars Missioneers
Ruth Curran, The Evergreen Project, United States
Digital Environment Project: Exploring the Natural World Through Interaction
Anne (Nancy) Degnan, Center for Environmental Research and Conservation, Earth Institute, Columbia University, United States
21st Century Sustainability Lab (21CSL) using integrated real and digital world technology
Joshua Drew, The Field Museum, United States
From the West Side to the West Pacific: Fijian reef conservation through collaborative student action
Mindy Faber, Columbia College Chicago, United States
The Girls, Gaming and Gender Learning Lab (3G Lab)
Rebecca Ferraro, Second Avenue Software, United States
Martha Madison's Marvelous Machines, a collaborative multiplayer multiplatform physics game for middle-school girls
Ray Ferrer, New York Hall of Science, United States
Scaling up the New York Hall of Science's (NYSCI) Virtual Hall of Science project
Nicomedes Flores Martinez, Manuela Gandarillas Rehabilitation Center for the Blind, Bolivia
Participatory Learning for Blind Children and Teenagers in Cochabamba, Bolivia
Rosanna Garcia, Northeastern University, United States
Nox No More: Connecting travel logs with simulation and gaming for more powerful environmental education
Douglas Geers, City University of New York, Brooklyn College, United States
American iDolls
Marcia Grayson, Walworth Barbour American International School (WBAIS), Israel
Global Awareness, Investigation and Action (GAIA) in environmental research and social/data networking of secondary students
Robert Hanner, Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Canada
Join the race to identify all the species on the planet as a genetic sleuth
Peter C. Hart, Dialoggers, Inc., United States
Peace Lab, an Interactive Course & Role-Play Simulation for Peacebuilders
Leshell Hatley, Uplift, Inc., United States
YOUTH LAB: Teens Designing Android Apps (Creative Expression & Mobile Application Development)
Steven Higgins, Durham University, United Kingdom
Windows Into Our World
Hole-in-the-wall Education Limited, India
Activity Based E-Learning - A Scalable Solution for Improving Quality of Elementary Education
Michael Horn, Northwestern University, United States
BugHunt: Experiencing Evolution through Participatory Simulation
Tamara Hudgins, Girlstart, United States
Girlstart: a STEM-school-life learning resource
Julie Keane, Culbreth Middle School, United States
The Digital Sandbox Club: Middle school students creating apps to solve real world problems
Sarah Kirn, Gulf of Maine Research Institute, United States
Young People Take the VITAL SIGNS of Climate Change, Build Scientific Habits of Mind
David Klevan, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States
Collaborative History Lab: Children of the Lodz Ghetto - A Memorial Research Project
David Langendoen, Electric Funstuff, United States
The Great Space Race
Brenda Mathisen, OpenVES, Inc., United States
Math Learning Landscape
Narcisse Mbunzama Lokwa, Infogroup International, Zaire
World Youth Project
Brad Mclain, Space Science Institute, United States
Digital Science Theater Creation using SOS and STEPS
William Muir, The Solar Cinema, India
The Solar Cinema: An international platform for men to investigate their role within society
Mitchel Resnick, MIT Media Lab, United States
Scratch & Share: Collaborating with Youth to Develop the Next Generation of Creative Software
Jason Robinson, PlanetYou, Canada
Terra X: An Interactive Learning Lab
Ruma Roka, Noida Deaf Society, India
Learning Ecosystem for the Deaf
Stephen Sayers, Futurelab Education, United Kingdom
EcoBugs
Richard Scullin, MobileEd.org, United States
Open Mobile Learning: Helping Integrate Mobile Phones with Curriculum
Candace Hackett Shively, TeachersFirst/The Source for Learning, Inc., United States
MySciLife: Bringing Science to Life
Elisabeth Soep, Youth Radio-Youth Media International, United States
Youth Media International's App Lab: Programming Collaborative Community Change
Jennifer Stancil, Carnegie Science Center, United States
Click! The Online Spy School: Engaging girls in STEM activities, peer networking, and gaming
Emily Starr, StarrMatica Learning Systems, United States
Online Interactive Science Labs
Diane Testa, The Revolving Museum, United States
Artbotics: Creativity with Art and Technology
Laura Tomokiyo, Carnegie Mellon University, United States
Global Ecology: Fostering Student-Scientist Field Studies through Gigapixel Images
Thomas Vaidhyan, Achieve Educational Systems Inc., United States
Carbon FootPrint/Global SIM City - A Global Energy, Science, Mathematics & Socio-Cultural lab
Victoria Vesna, Art | Sci center, UCLA, United States
NanoLab SAND (Social ArtSci Networked Discourse)
Debra Woods, Office of Math, Science and Technology Education, United States
DIGIFab (Discovering Ideas and Generating Inventions): Act Locally, Share Globally
Eve Wurtele, Iowa State University, United States
Meta!Blast: A 3D videogame exploration of bioenergy for high school students

Game Changer Finalists

Jennifer Biedler, Blacksburg High School, United States
Off-the-Shelf-Games as a Pedagogical Tool to Enhance Critical Thinking in High School Biology
Scott Comstock, United States
Aeon Quest: Abduction (Episode 1)
David Dino, United States
Stem Cell Sackboy
Martin Grover, Sambiglyon, United Kingdom
Stop That Baddie!
Lori Hanson, United States
GEO-SPORE 3-D: Master Geometry in a series of 3-D Mathematical Galactic Adventures
Josh Hughes, Add-A-Tudez Entertainment Company // Team KAIZEN, United States
Discovery Pier: a whole new spin on Science and Engineering!
Patrick Keller, United States
DIASTEM (Digitally Integrating Academics of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math): Students Learn by Doing
Clinton Koch, Indiana University, United States
Science Matters: Chemistry Adventures in Little Big Planet
Kan Yang Li, United States
Sackboys and The Mysterious Proof
John Livingston, Tyndale Seminary, Canada
Euphoric Physics
Mark Matthews, United States
Exploring and Promoting Chemistry Through LittleBigPlanet
Gemma McLean, Gemixin Limited, United Kingdom
A Day in the Life of a Computer
Christopher Miller, United States
Little Big Science Series
Stephen Mills, LBPmedia, United Kingdom
Science and engineering based level series – “Powered Down”
Mathew Powers, Indiana University, United States
Creatures Classified! An exploration of cataloging creatures across the galaxy
Susan Stiles, Oak Grove Technologies, United States
The Space Race
Nicholas Street, Street Family, United Kingdom
Finding Sources of Energy

Playing our way to a better world

2010-03-19T16:33:00.002-04:00

Not many people think our Big Problem is that we don't play enough games. But game designer Jane McGonigal says that's exactly what we need to do. Even she describes this idea as "crazy," but she's also got a great point. What if all the time we spend playing games was dedicated instead to making the world a better place? And what if we could do both at the same time?

Check out her TED talk and see what you think.

Game Changers educate and inspire

2010-02-12T16:17:00.003-05:00

The MacArthur Foundation's Connie Yowell wrote a great essay at Huffington Post this week highlighting the potential of the Game Changers awards. Here's an excerpt:

News of the competition has been making its way through the gaming community, and a number of contest proposals have already come in. They contain some provocative creative plots and adventures: finding a missing genius scientist, repelling invaders of human consciousness, and the proper care and feeding of aliens. There are some intriguing new potential heroes, too, including: "Sackboy," a Geico-like lizard named "Sal," and an invisible time-traveling professor named "Momo."

- Connie Yowell: Inspire a New Generation of Game Experiences for Children, HuffingtonPost.com, 2/8/10

Got an inspiring idea? Digital Media and Learning Competition submissions close on Monday. Apply now!

LBP and Snow

2010-02-09T15:45:00.012-05:00

Last week North Carolina was hit with more snow than we've seen in a few years. This, of course, means school was canceled for most of the week. North Carolinians are not so adept at driving on inches of snow, and we don't have many snow plows! So one afternoon I brought my daughter and two friends to HASTAC, where they spent the entire afternoon playing LBP. They think I have the coolest job around! (They're right.) Check out the rapt attention and good times:

DML Competition re-opens to NEW applicants

2010-02-04T14:37:00.002-05:00

Due to popular demand, the 2010 HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition has been re-opened to new applicants!

The application system is now open. Submit your application between now and noon EST on February 15th.

To be considered, all new applications must be submitted by noon EST on February 15th.
We cannot guarantee that new applications will be given the opportunity to benefit from public comment and feedback on their applications. Newly submitted applications will not be available in the public commenting system until after February 15th.
For full information about this year's Competition, please see http://www.dmlcompetition.net

As planned, previous applicants are now also invited to re-submit their applications to include ideas and collaborators that may have arisen from the public comment. All previous applications must be re-submitted by February 15th to be considered. Click here to learn more about the Competition timeline.

Click here to create or re-submit your application now. Good luck!

Join the Conversation!

2010-01-27T09:48:00.003-05:00

Public commenting on the 2010 HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition is now open! Join the conversation. Log in to provide feedback and comments on applications.

Register to add your comments by creating a user name and password (please note the user name and password you created to submit an application will not work; all users must create new logins). You will receive an activation e-mail, with a link to confirm your address, and can then log in to the system.
Take a look at as many of the brief 50-word project descriptions as you can. If something looks interesting, you can either read more (a 300-word description) or save it and come back later for a closer look.
Once you’ve taken a look, we encourage you to discuss (post a comment) or tell a friend.
Browse around the site. You can search for projects by tag words that interest you, like robots or climate change, or look at the tag cloud for other clues. You can see which projects are generating the most comments or see which ones were commented on most recently.
Navigate, explore and share your thoughts. Do you think the idea is a good one? Do you have any suggestions on how to make it better? Interested in collaborating? The applicants will have a chance to incorporate your input during the resubmission period.
All of the projects have distinct URLs, so you can tweet, blog and share applications and solicit feedback.

Tonight Is the Night! Preliminary applications due by 11:59pm EST on January 22nd

2010-01-22T08:54:00.002-05:00

As the deadline for preliminary applications draws ever closer, we wanted to take this opportunity to encourage you to submit your application today. The application system is open and will remain so until 11:59pm EST tonight--Friday, January 22nd.

However, please don't wait until the last minute and risk any potential snafus that could jeopardize your eligibility!

Here at HASTAC, we will make every effort to address any and all questions and/or technical difficulties even today--the deadline. Unfortunately, given the heavy traffic, we can in no way guarantee that last day queries or technical difficulties can be resolved in time to meet the deadline.

Don't risk it! If you have your application ready to go, go ahead and submit it here.

Best of luck!

Just over 3 days to go! Preliminary applications due by 11:59pm EST on January 22nd

2010-01-19T17:25:00.000-05:00

As the deadline for preliminary applications draws closer, we wanted to take this opportunity to encourage folks to submit their applications as soon as possible. The application system is open and will remain so until 11:59pm EST on January 22nd.

However, please don't wait until the last minute and risk any potential snafus that could jeopardize your eligibility!

Here at HASTAC, we will make every effort to address any and all questions and/or technical difficulties even on the day of the deadline. Unfortunately, given the heavy traffic, we can in no way guarantee that last day queries or technical difficulties can be resolved in time to meet the deadline.

Don't risk it! If you have your application ready to go, go ahead and submit it here:
http://dmlcompetition.net/fastapps/login.php

Best of luck!